330 



NATURE 



[June 27, 1918 



...The council of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 

 fS" prepared to receive papers on the subject of " The 

 Co-ordination of Research in Works and Labora- 

 tories," with a view to the paper being read and dis- 

 cussed at one of the ordinary meetings of the institu- 

 tion in London, and also before one or more of the 

 local sections. Papers should not exceed 15,000 to 

 20,000 words in length, and the counci) will award a 

 special premium of 25^. to the author of the paper 

 which best fulfils the objects of the discussion, pro- 

 vided such paper reaches the standard aimed at by 

 the council. Papers should be sent to the secretary 

 of the institution not later than November 4 next. 

 It is the intention of the council to publish the selected 

 paper (which will become the property of the institu- 

 tion) in the Journal, together with the discussion. 

 Competitors intending to submit papers are invited to 

 communicate with the secretary. 



;■; The latest part of the Geologische Rundschau (April, 

 igiS) contains milth news of geology and allied 

 sciences in Germany and Austria. Prof. W. Branca 

 has retired from his professorship in Berlin, and has 

 been succeeded by Prof. J. Pompecki, of Tubingen. 

 Prof. E. Kayser has similarly retired in Marburg, 

 atnd his successor is Prof. R. Wedekitid. Prof. L. 

 Milch, of Greifswald, has followed the late Prof. 

 Hintze as professor of mineralogy in Breslau, and 

 Prof. E. Hennig, of Berlin, has become professor of 

 geology at Tubingen. Prof. O. Abel has been made 

 cft-dinary professor of palseobiology in Vienna. The 

 long list of coursesof lectures in the universities during 

 the winter semester 1917-18 includes not only the 

 usual ^ general subjects, but also many special sub- 

 jects in preparation for research. Among these may 

 be mentioned the atomic structure of crystals, the 

 science of gem-stones, alpine geology, palaeontologv 

 of mollusca, of fishes, amphibia, and reptilia, evolu- 

 tion of the mammalia, the Ice age and early man, 

 and the principles of palaeobotany. There are' a few 

 technical lectures • on coal and" petroleum, on the 

 geology of Germany, and also one course at the 

 Colonial Institute at Hamburg on "The Geological 

 Conditions of the German Protectorates." An ap- 

 preciative obituary notice of Prof. E. W. Benecke, 

 who died at Strasburg on March 6, 1917, aged sevent}-- 

 nine, is accompanied by a fine portrait. 



Mr. T. T. Waterman gives a full history of the 

 Yana group of Indians in North-eastern California 

 in the University, of California Publications in Ameri- 

 can Ethnology and Archaeology (vol. xiii.. No. 2, 

 February). They are distinguished from their 

 neighbours not so much by physique and culture as 

 b)'^ language. They are important because, for cer- 

 tain rather extraordinary reasons, a few members of 

 the group remained conservative much longer than 

 the other Indians in California, retaining their primi- 

 tive mode of life in a very unusual degree until 1908. 



The Rev. S. S. Dorman discusses native ideas of 

 cosmology in the South African Journal of Science 

 (vol. xiv.. No. 4, November, 1917). The origin of 

 these is obscure, but the writer remarks that the 

 Abenanswa may be a mixed remnant of the old 

 Hamitic stock; Semite and Hamite are very closely 

 related both in blood and language, and verv probably 

 had the same or similar legends of Creation. If so, 

 the Abenanswa, like the Masai, could have derived 

 their legends from the north, and the Bantu may 

 have learned them in a more or less complete form 

 But, on the whole, the writer leans to the conclusion 

 that the Bantu ideas of cosmology are purely their 

 own, and are thus an index of the mentality of that 

 race. 



NO. 2539, VOL. lOl] 



In an interesting article entitled " Some Early Artists 

 of Gloucester," published in vol. xl. of the Trans- 

 actions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeo- 

 logical Society for 1917, Mr. St. Clair Baddeley dis- 

 cusses the so-called Roman walls of the city. None 

 of the earlier historians — ^thelwerd, Fosbroke, or 

 Atkins — record any tradition of such walls. They 

 were not discovered during the excavations of 1818, 

 nor during the Shire Haill extension in 1909, and it 

 seems clear that Romano-British Glevum never had 

 anything more substantial than the powerful fosse 

 and vallum of other Roman settlements: The 

 remains shown as "Roman" walls are not Romano- 

 British; they are entirely medieval, though probably 

 occupying the convenient line of the Romano-British 

 fosse, and it seems clear that the small Romano- 

 British Glevum. having in its rear the Severn, had 

 no need of elaborate defences. The walls belong to 

 the Norman period when Gloucester became an out- 

 post, like Chester, to guard the country from the 

 incursions of Welsh horsemen. 



Messrs. Headley Bros, have sent us two " Papers 

 for the Present," namely, (i) "The Modern Midas," ii 

 (2) "The Banker's Part in Reconstruction," published •' 

 by them for the Cities Committee of the Sociological * 

 Society. These two papers are the first of a series 

 on economic and social problems intended to educate 

 public opinion in the direction of certain schemes of 

 reconstruction. Their object is to reverse the ten- 

 dency to centralisation and bureaucracy, in which 

 Germany set a bad example to Western civilisation, 

 and to substitute for it local and spontaneous action 

 in every sphere of life, social, political, and economic. 

 This is combined with an insistence on communal 

 rights, the two objects being reconciled in the maxim, 

 " Individualise the State, socialise the Community." 

 The" two papers under notice cover the financial 

 side of this policy. They advocate the conscription 

 of incomes for the period of the war, the nationalisa- 

 tion of credit and of the credit machinery, and the 

 use of the latter for promoting production after the 

 war on lines profitable to the community and bene- 

 ficial to the worker. On the negative side, the two 

 chief objects of attack are the gold standard and the 

 anti-social powers of modern finance in private hands. 



We have received from the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington a volume entitled " European Treaties 

 bearing on the History of the United States and its 

 Dependencies to 1648." It is edited by Mr. F. G. 

 Davenport, and contains the original texts, with^trans- 

 lations and notes, of forty treaties and Papal Bulls, 

 which all deal with the struggle for participation in 

 trade and territorial possession of the lands newly 

 discovered in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 

 The originals of these documents are difficult of 

 access, particularly to the American student, so the 

 present collection should prove very useful. While 

 mainly of historical value, there is much in the early 

 documents of geographical interest. Spanish dominion 

 in the West and Portuguese dominion in Africa and 

 the^ East were prompted by the Papal Bull of 1493, 

 assigning to^ Castile the exclusive right to lands west 

 of the meridian situated 100 leagues west of the 

 Azores, lands discovered before Christmas, 1492, to 

 be excepted. A later treaty pushed this line to 

 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, and 

 both Portugal and Castile agreed to send caravels 

 with pilots and astrologers to determine the location 

 of the line. But this demarcation never took effect. 

 The confusion caused in territorial rights in the 

 Moluccas by the Pope's failure to extend his line to 

 the further side of the globe is illustrated in later 

 treaties. This confusion had been intensified by the 



